Claridge proposes five Ottawa mixed-used towers

Claridge proposes five Ottawa mixed-used towers

Claridge Homes has unveiled plans to build five mixed-use towers ranging from 25 to 45 storeys in the next phase of its development at the east end of Ottawa’s LeBreton Flats. East Flats would feature more than 1.5 million square feet of residential space along with nearly 230,000 square feet of commercial space northeast of the Pimisi LRT station that is currently being built.

Ottawa Business Journal – Property Biz Canada

Sutton Place enters Atlantic Canada hotel market

The Nova Centre will become home to Sutton Place‘s first property in Atlantic Canada. The Nova Centre, which includes the new Halifax Convention Centre, opened in December, but had not said who its hotel tenant would be. The high-end hotel will have 262 “luxury” guest rooms, a restaurant and underground parking. 

CBC – Halifax ChronicleHerald

CPPIB real estate assets top $42.8B in 2017

Net assets for the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board have grown to $337.1 billion Cdn after a very busy year of activity in the global real estate sector, which now comprises 12.7 per cent of the total portfolio or $42.8 billion. The combined assets of commercial real estate, infrastructure and agricultural land, reached $75.3 billion or 22.3 per cent of the total CPP Fund at the end of 2017.

Property Biz Canada

CT REIT assembles an entire Calgary block

CT REIT’s (CRT-UN-T) ability to acquire a full block of prime Calgary industrial real estate came about, in part, due to its unique relationship with Canadian Tire Corporation (CTC-T), says CEO Ken Silver. During an interview with RENX, Silver discussed the two-year process which resulted in the REIT compiling what he has called a piece of “fabulous real estate.”

Property Biz Canada

Toys ‘R’ Us in talks to sell Canadian business

Toys “R” Us is in talks to sell its entire Canadian business as it works to shutter its 70-year-old U.S. operations, but analysts are skeptical about the future of the brick-and-mortar toy retailer’s existing business model. The company confirmed Thursday it is in “active discussions regarding a transaction that would result in an acquisition of the entire Canadian business.”

Globe and Mail – Business In Vancouver – CoStar Group – Reuters

Vancouver to announce ultra-high-speed rail to Seattle

A fast train to Seattle looks to be a step closer to reality. On the heels of the Washington state legislature voting to move forward on further study of high-speed rail in the region, the B.C. government announced Premier John Horgan was to be joined in Downtown Vancouver on Friday by Washington Gov. Jay Inslee to make an announcement regarding ultra-high-speed corridor service connecting Vancouver with Seattle and Portland.

Vancouver Sun – CBC

GBCI Canada launched to advance green buildings

The Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC) and Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI) have formed GBCI Canada to accelerate the pace of green building initiatives across the country. “It’s a Canadian for-profit company and is led by Canadians,” said Thomas Mueller, the CaGBC president and chief executive officer who also assumes the same roles with GBCI Canada.

Sustainable Biz Canada

Television City towers too tall: Planners

A sky-scraping Hamilton condo development is in for a fight now that the city seems poised to reject its rezoning. But the big-name developer behind it says he’s already appealed it to a provincial board anyway. City planners say councillors should reject Brad Lamb’s proposal for Television City, two planned condo towers of 40 and 30 storeys at 163 Jackson St. W.

CBC – Hamilton Spectator – Property Biz Canada

Developer has mixed-use plans for Ottawa property

A Cornwall-based developer wants to put up a nine-storey building with a mix of commercial and residential space on the site of a historic home in Ottawa. Chenier Development Corp.’s proposal for 541 and 545 Rideau St. calls for 102 residential units above a ground-floor commercial space, according to a planning application filed at City Hall.

Ottawa Business Journal

U. of Lethbridge launches Dhillon School of Business

The University of Lethbridge Wednesday announced the transformation of its Faculty of Management to the Dhillon School of Business, which will have a strategic focus on finance and business innovation. Navjeet (Bob) Dhillon, CEO of Calgary-based Mainstreet Equity (MEQ-T), pledged a $10-million gift, the largest in the institution’s history. The business school will build on its curriculum by expanding its focus on innovation, entrepreneurism and internationalization.

Canada Newswire – Financial Post

BTB’s strategic repositioning ‘extremely successful’: CEO

“In 2017 more than 16% of our leases were maturing. This, in itself, was a major challenge,” president and CEO Michel Léonard said in a media release announcing BTB REIT‘s (BTB-UN-T) year-end financial results. “We are proud to say that our leasing and property management teams, supported by all others involved in our operations understood the scope of the challenge and they rose to it extremely successfully.”

Canada Newswire – Property Biz Canada

Starlight sells apartment complex, buys another

Starlight U.S. Multi-Family (No. 5) Core Fund (STUS-A-X) announced Thursday it has sold Greenhaven Apartments, a 216-suite, class-A, garden-style apartment community in North Dallas and constructed in 2009, for approximately US$32.60 million. The fund subsequently announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire Alexander Village, a 320-suite, class-A, garden-style apartment community completed in 2015 and located in Charlotte, N.C.

Canada Newswire

How a big quake could rock B.C.’s world

To travel through the Japanese prefecture of Iwate is to have a window on coastal B.C.’s possible future. Seven years ago, Iwate was rocked by the kind of violent earthquake and tsunami are one day expected to hit coastal B.C. Iwate, in which Victoria’s sister city Morioka is the capital, was the hardest hit prefecture of the 2011 Tohoku quake, the fourth-greatest magnitude quake ever recorded.

Victoria Times Colonist

Ex-Target in K-W’s Conestoga Mall home to 11 new shops

The former Target in Conestoga Mall is now home to 11 new stores that opened Thursday, with 15 more coming this fall. The new stores include Sport Chek and Miniso, a Japanese lifestyle brand. “We viewed the closure of Target as an opportunity to repurpose the space and increase the selection of stores that we could offer to our shoppers,”said mall GM Sandra Stone.

CBC

Whistleblower claims Walmart cheated in e-commerce war

In its race to catch Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN-Q)  in online retailing, Walmart Inc. (WMT-N) issued misleading e-commerce results and fired an executive who complained the company was breaking the law, according to a whistle-blower lawsuit filed by Tri Huynh, a former director of business development at Walmart. Walmart shares fell as much as two per cent.

Bloomberg – Bloomberg – Bloomberg

Featured Column

The impact on real estate in a Johnny Cab world

What will a future with autonomous vehicles on the road really look like? I think they nailed it quite well way back in the ‘80s in one of Schwarzenegger’s sci-fi flicks, Total Recall. Most urban dwellers take some form of mass transit.

Read more

Real Estate Companies

MetLife plans mixed-use project in Midtown Atlanta

MetLife Investment Management is moving forward with the first phase of a mixed-use redevelopment project in Midtown Atlanta that will feature about 500,000 square feet of class-A office space, 87,000 square feet of retail, a 20-story hotel and a 350-unit apartment building. JLL is providing project management and leasing services for the development at 17th, West Peachtree and Spring streets.

CP Executive

REOC Financial Reports

Latest financial results:

* Invesque Inc., (IVQ-U-T), Canada Newswire

REIT Financial Reports

Latest financial results:

* Nexus REIT, (NXR-UN-X), Canada Newswire

Real Estate Investment Trusts

Should investors bet on Cominar upside?

Cominar REIT (CUF-UN-T) units took a hit after a release of financial results on March 7, as management announced a host of strategic changes. The REIT’s equity valuation may continue subdued in the near term, as investors assess potential performance of the new arrangements, while feeling the agony of another distribution cut. 

Motley Fool

Why SL Green is on a selling tear

Why bother buying buildings when you can just buy your own shares? SL Green Realty (SLG-N) expanded its share buyback program to $1.5 billion in December while shedding stakes in commercial properties, the Wall Street Journal reported. The rationale: SL Green’s shares trade for less than its buildings are supposedly worth, and buying more of them could be the easiest way to boost their value.

The Real Deal

Retail

Mastermind Toys opening three new stores

As part of the company’s 2018 growth plans, Canada’s largest specialty toy and children’s books retailer Mastermind Toys has announced three more stores will open in quick succession this month: St. Albert, Alta., followed by Saskatoon South and Hamilton, totalling 63 Canadian locations. “Mastermind Toys is in growth mode and we continue to expand our presence across Canada,” said Jon Levy, chief merchant, co-founder and CEO.

Canada Newswire

Montreal killing Sainte-Catherine Street for retailers

Montreal’s 195th St. Patrick’s Day Parade is set for Sunday. However, one of the oldest St. Paddy’s Day parades in North America will take a detour to avoid the mess on Sainte-Catherine Street. Entire sections of La Catherine, as the legendary downtown thoroughfare is known, have been dug up as Montreal embarks on a four-year long project to replace century-old waterworks and make the street more pedestrian-friendly.

Globe and Mail (Subscription required)

Restaurants and Eateries

Caliburger introduces Flippy the fast-food robot

The Caliburger chain can’t keep burger flippers employed — they quit too often, it says. So, the plan is to try something new: a robot that has been programmed to flip hamburgers all day long. Named Flippy, the US$100,000 machine is capable of flipping as many as 2,000 burgers a day. CaliBurger SFU in Burnaby is the first Canadian location.

Winnipeg Free Press

Cannabis industry news

Cash flooding into cannabis sector

It has been a busy six months of dealmaking for legal cannabis companies. The sector has captivated investors in Canada and beyond – from millennials to retirees, pro traders to first-time investors. Their cash has been flooding into marijuana equities and exchange-traded funds, helping to push the valuations of startups that have booked little to no revenue, let alone income, into the hundreds of millions and even billions.

Globe and Mail (Subscription required) – Canada Newswire – Canada Newswire – PR Newswire

ALR advocates aim to ban pot farms on B.C.’s fertile land

Every gold rush comes to an end — and sometimes they leave the land a little worse for wear. As marijuana legalization looms, there are fortunes to be made. Small towns like Williams Lake, in the B.C. Interior, are venturing to become major players, while licensed medicinal growers are buying up swaths of prime B.C. farmland — land that could soon be ripe for recreational crops.

CBC

Human Resources

Greenhill names Troso head of N.A. real estate

Greenhill & Co., Inc. (GHL-N), a leading independent investment bank, announced Wednesday Adam Troso will join the firm in New York as a managing director and head of Real Estate Corporate Advisory for North America. Troso has more than 20 years of real estate related experience. He was most recently a managing director in the Real Estate investment banking group at J.P.Morgan, where he spent more than 11 years.

PR Newswire

Other

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